


One (Two, Three) Thing(s) at a Time

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Consensual Kink, Handcuffs, Morning After, Multi, Porn with Feelings, Relationship Negotiation, Rough Sex, Threesome, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:42:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They orbit around each other, but it’s not very often that all three of them point the same direction. They could work on it, but that’s another page they don’t all land on at the same time.</p>
<p>Three mornings after, three (different) nights, and one date (for Haven definitions of date). [S3 spoilers.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	One (Two, Three) Thing(s) at a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly vague spoilers for some of the things that happen in S3, and for some of the emotional landscape. Can probably be considered AU for the season finale, since this doesn't engage at all with how to resolve that cliffhanger.

_One_

Audrey wakes up with that ‘God, what did I do last night?’ feeling that should be an indicator of one of her rare hangovers except that there’s no headache, no bad taste in her mouth. And when she opens her eyes, there’s no immediate desire to close them again. There’s just Nathan pressed tight to one side, and Duke sprawled on the other. Duke is asleep. Nathan is pretending to be. Audrey turns her head to look at him properly. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Nathan opens his eyes. “You okay?”

Audrey tests that notion, stretching her arms above her head. “I’m good. You?”

“... Fine.”

“Want to give me a little more than that? Last night was...” 

“Yeah.”

The two of them have been whispering. Duke doesn’t. “I need coffee. Audrey?” There’s just enough of a pause that she can hear it. “Nathan?”

“We should probably-.” Nathan begins to say.

“Coffee’s great,” Audrey interrupts. “You remember how I take it?”

Duke grins back at her. “I maintain that would have been cool.”

Nathan looks between the two of them. He gets out of bed, blankets falling around him. There’s a patch of reddened skin at his neck and on his thighs, rough from Duke’s beard. There’s a bite-mark Audrey knows she put there, right on his collarbone. Debauched is a good look on him, but he doesn’t look in the place to hear that right now. She sees him checking his phone. “Anything urgent after yesterday?”

“Doesn’t look like it.” He starts picking things up from the floor.

Duke is fussing around at the sink. “If you’re looking for your pants, there’s a pretty good chance they’re still out on the deck. Along with my shirt and almost all of what Audrey was wearing.”

Nathan glares at Duke’s back, which doesn’t make him turn around. Nathan goes back up to the deck to look. Audrey hits Duke with the nearest object, which turns out to be Nathan’s shirt. “Not helping.”

“You’re assuming I wanted to help.”

“I was assuming you weren’t actively trying to make him-.” She cuts herself off when Nathan comes back, now wearing his jeans and carrying hers. 

He passes them over. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

Duke crosses the room towards Nathan. “Coffee.” He blows gently over the surface of the liquid, hands Nathan the mug, and backs away again. 

Audrey watches Nathan sit down on the edge of the bed. She accepts another mug from Duke, and sits on the bed too. Duke lounges against the wall, and they drink their coffee without speaking. 

 

_Two_

In his more confident moods, Duke would say that he knew they’d be back. Obviously he knew that they’d be back for _something_ – Audrey lives above his bar and Nathan’s not happy without coming around to accuse Duke of acts of dubious legality and/or morality at least once a week. But Duke also suspected that having done this other thing once, they might come back for that. He hoped, anyway, and Duke is an optimist over all kinds of things he should know better about. He would kind of like it if Nathan could touch him without having to shove him into a wall first, but that one, even he knows better. If Duke wants the other Nathan, the one who used to be his friend, he either has to figure out how to turn the clock back three (twenty-seven) years, or he has to work at the whole thing sideways. Truth be told, Duke wouldn’t know what to do with that Nathan if he turned up. This one, at least, he can handle.

Duke says, “I genuinely don’t know what you’re pissed about right now.”

“The boat? The thirty five minutes you didn’t call me back? Nearly getting Audrey killed?” Nathan asks.

“Oh, this is about _Audrey_ now is it? Because here was me thinking we were just having the same damn argument over for the hundredth time. Oh.” He holds up one finger, trying to demonstrate his lack of interest in Nathan, once again, thinking there’s a damn thing in the world Duke would do to let Audrey come to harm. To allow _Nathan_ to come to harm, even, and he has far more reason to let that one just go ahead and happen.

That’s the point where Duke’s back hits the wall, Nathan trying to use an extra inch he’s never had to loom with. 

“Seems to me like we’ve been here before,” Duke says. “Same location, even.” He looks over Nathan’s shoulder at Audrey, standing a few footsteps away, her hands outstretched. “What do you think?”

“Duke,” she warns him.

Nathan growls, drawing Duke’s attention back to him, to his throat. “You really want to do this now?”

Duke does. It’s been nearly two weeks, and they haven’t talked about it all, and it was actually him who nearly died today. Audrey got herself into a scrape coming to rescue him, which was half of the reason Duke hadn’t answered Nathan’s call in the first place, but Duke was a few seconds and another bad decision away from a bullet in the chest. Duke’s pretty sure no one would have airlifted resurrection-girl back to Haven just to revive him, even if they had got there before the water started coming in. So yeah, he’s feeling like prodding the Nathan-shaped bear tonight. If only because he has known Nathan since they were five and some days, maybe one in a hundred, he can prod him just the right way to make sparks fly. 

Nathan hasn’t taken his hand away - it’s resting below Duke’s collarbone, while Nathan stares. All he needs is a push.

“Go ahead,” Duke says.

“What?”

“Whatever you want. Go ahead.” Duke can take it. Nathan still doesn’t move and Duke sighs, rolling his neck, staring at the stars. That’s about the point Nathan goes for his throat, biting the exposed skin, drawing a yelp. When he gets his breath back, Duke says, “See, now that’s what I meant. Whatever you want. _Take it_.”

Nathan leans back far enough to look Duke in the eye, trying to use his cop glare to make sure Duke means it, or maybe he’s just leaning back to give Audrey time to get closer. She gets in between Nathan’s shoulder and Duke’s chest, meeting Duke’s eyes with a stare all of her own. She doesn’t have any problem believing him. They have their off moments, Audrey and Duke, but when he tells her that anything she needs is hers, she doesn’t call him a liar. 

If Duke had to name Nathan’s top ten worst traits, he wouldn’t have any problem coming up with a few. Selfishness hasn’t ever been on that list. Nathan is self-righteous, he has a bitch of a temper, and he’s the worst kind of hypocrite over who crossed which lines, but he doesn’t ever take something just because he wants it. Honestly, that level of denial pisses Duke off more than plain selfishness ever would, but that’s Nathan. When he knows, must get, that he can take whatever he wants from Duke.

Nathan slides his leg between Duke’s and Duke’s head hits metal again. “Okay, see that’s...” Duke begins.

“Are you planning on talking the whole way through this?” Nathan asks. 

That’s the first real indication that Nathan is planning on keeping going but Duke can’t help saying, “Maybe. Is that a problem?”

“Maybe,” Nathan counters.

Audrey interjects, “I think it depends what you’re planning on saying.”

The next thing Duke is _planning_ on saying is something colourful about Nathan’s cock-teasing tendencies what with all the shallow grinding he’s doing. The next thing he actually manages to say out loud is more towards, “Jesus _Christ_ , Nathan,” which is more effective anyway. Nathan’s hands make short work of Duke’s shirt, the few buttons flying across the deck. 

Audrey curls her finger in the chain of Duke’s necklace. She pulls him closer. Her nails are sharp on his back. Duke groans. 

Nathan’s voice is different. “I’m not actually going to hit you again, you know. If that’s what you-.”

“Want?” Duke asks. “No, though for a person who can’t feel it, you sure do get a lot of satisfaction from splitting open your knuckles on my jaw. But no, Nathan, I- Audrey.”

“You don’t have to play nice, boys,” she says, “but play nicer than this.” She kisses him, sweet for a breath before she grips tighter onto his shoulders. Nathan shoves forward and that pushes her onto her toes before she’s just caught between their two bodies. Audrey steadies herself with an arm around Nathan’s back. She kisses Nathan then, running her hands through his hair. “Better.” She slides down to her feet again and takes one step to the side. Nathan is all heat, pressing rough where’s there’s not enough friction yet, both of them still in their jeans. Audrey takes care of that, unbuttoning Duke, steadying him while he kicks them off. Nathan stops to stare. 

“You too,” Duke tells him.

Nathan, who has never had an instruction from Duke he liked, pushes Duke flat on his back on the deck instead. This, Duke is going to feel tomorrow. Nathan remembers to lose the pants then, throwing them behind him somewhere in the dark. He looms over Duke’s body but he’s still not going to ask and he sure as hell isn’t going to move. Duke pushes himself up on one elbow, moves a bit further down, and opens his mouth. He chokes, just for a second, because Nathan moves too fast and Nathan is gasping his name and Nathan. Nathan pets at Duke’s hollowed cheeks and Duke has no fucking idea what Nathan is getting from that but it must be something because he keeps doing it. Just watches his fingers and the slow inching of his cock in and out of Duke’s mouth. 

Duke doesn’t know how long it’s only that, before he feels Audrey’s fingers. He’s hard himself, had barely noticed it happening, but he feels her rolling the condom on. Nathan leans back against her and Duke has to crane his neck to follow him. Audrey lines them up just right and slides down. Duke closes his eyes.

They’re both moving above him now, moving together, and Audrey is murmuring something that Duke doesn’t quite hear about how good this is already, how much better it’s going to be. Nathan taps Duke’s cheek again and he could just mean pay attention but when Duke opens his eyes to see, Nathan gives him one of those slow disbelieving smiles and Duke can’t smile back but he manages something. Nathan lifts Duke’s hand from the deck, and flicks his tongue at the blood welling up on the split knuckles. Duke has never been able to guess what Nathan might want.

 

_Three_

Nathan isn’t great with change. Still, they’ve been doing this on and off for six weeks and when he wakes up he knows that he’s in the bed in Duke’s boat and that Audrey is not. She is picking something up from the floor. He says, “Morning?”

Audrey leans over to kiss him. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

“It’s...” He cranes his neck – Duke apparently sees no need for clocks in the bedroom now. “Early. Seven?”

“Six-thirty,” she corrects him, pulling her shirt on. “And Sunday, I know. I need to go talk to-.”

“Bonnie Nutting, I remember. See you later?”

“Yeah.”

Nathan watches her finish getting dressed, still not quite awake. She kisses him again, and then stretches over him to kiss Duke’s cheek. Nathan’s arm is trapped under Duke’s neck, and he doesn’t remember that happening.

Audrey leaves, and Nathan closes his eyes again. He’s a morning person when he needs to be but if someone needs him right now they can call.

After a minute or two, Duke says, “You’re not leaving?”

Nathan opens his eyes and turns his head, though Duke is slightly blurry this close. “You’re throwing me out? Seriously?” The abuse Nathan gets for being the one to ask questions about what’s happening here, for being the one not so eager to be caught creeping out of the boat by Haven’s gossip-mill, and now Duke’s chasing him off?

“No,” Duke says, too fast. “No, I just figured... Audrey left.”

“She’s off on one of her- she didn’t ask for back-up. Which doesn’t mean I wouldn’t give it to her, but Bonnie Nutting’s pushing seventy and to the best of my knowledge she’s not Troubled. I’m pretty sure Audrey can handle her.” Audrey can handle most things, and tempted as Nathan is to follow after her, he doesn’t need to and she doesn’t want him to. 

“Sure,” Duke says. That doesn’t feel like an end to it.

“You want me to go? Somewhere better to be?” Nathan asks. 

Duke shrugs. “Just thought this part didn’t do a whole lot for you, least not with me.”

Nathan tries to parse that. “Sorry?”

“Mornings.” Duke’s not making any move to get further away, or to release Nathan’s arm. He’s staring at the ceiling.

Nathan figures it out. “Duke, are you seriously- you think because Audrey’s gone I’ve suddenly lost the ability to be able to tell that you’re in bed with me?”

“I’m not sure that- sex, and whatever, sure, that’s different. But it’s Audrey that you-.”

Audrey is the one who Nathan wakes up holding onto, knowing the feel of her skin. Nathan says, “How long have you known me, and you still don’t get how this works?” 

It’s not like a superpower, the way the rest of his senses work to compensate. He’s not Daredevil. Some of it is effort: Nathan is a cop, and when the Troubles came back he figured out that if this was going to affect how he did his job, if he wasn’t going to notice that he was bleeding, if he was going to sometimes lose his footing on nothing and have to face his father offering him a hand up with that look on his face... Nathan worked on the other stuff. He pays attention. He hears things before Audrey does; he is always the first to smell smoke. The rest of it is about not having as much to process as everyone else. Yes, if he could feel his fingertips working through the ends of Duke’s hair, the solid mass of his shoulder, maybe Nathan would be getting overwhelmed by that particular sensation. But he can’t, so he isn’t. It leaves him room. 

Nathan says, “Even aside from the way I’m awake right now and can see you... you’ve been wearing the same cologne since you turned seventeen, you were out on the boat last night before we got in so I can- you’re close enough right now that I can hear your heart beating, I can sure as hell hear you breathing.” He hears the change in the breathing too. “I notice when you’re here, Duke.”

“Okay.”

“So can I go back to sleep now?”

“Yeah.”

Nathan pulls Duke a little closer; Duke goes easily, rolling against Nathan’s side. Nathan can’t feel that, but he knows it. The difference is there, but it matters less and less.

 

_One_

Audrey doesn’t ever want to think of them as tethers. They’re the reason she’s back here, the reason she fought so hard to stay and the reason for all the cracks in the cycle she’s supposed to be a part of. They’re the reason she fought so hard to remember and they’re what she came back to. But that’s not why she’s lying on her bed with her ankles locked around Nathan’s back while Duke lies alongside her talking dirty in his most conversational tone. She doesn’t love them because they keep her here; they keep her here because she loves them. In comparison with some of the other things that have gone on in her lives, this one is simple.

Nathan’s mouth is warm, his tongue is quick. He presses a kiss to her inner thigh before he opens her up and she tries very hard not to dig in with her heels and force him closer. His fingers around her waist are twitching and after another minute he gasps, “Sorry, wait.” 

Audrey focuses on each muscle in turn, relaxing on the bed again. Waiting. That’s a lot of sensation for him and he’s been teasing, trying to drag it out. 

Duke folds himself in two on the bed, using Nathan’s shoulder to pull himself in for a kiss. She wonders if that helps - the break in sensation with something else. Duke says, “You taste of her, you know.”

Nathan almost laughs. “I’ll bet.” He’s still breathing heavily. “This your way of asking me to tag you in?”

Duke says, “I think I can cope with that.”

Audrey allows her legs to drop to the bed, lets the two of them change places. 

Nathan lies near her on the bed, idly stroking one finger down her bare side, the only contact between them. Duke curls his big hands around her legs, smiles at her with a slick red mouth, and leans down. She has been close for what feels like hours now, feels like electric. 

Nathan lowers his mouth to the curve of the underside of her breast, working his way up. Audrey looks at the top of his head. “Okay if I touch you?” He hums some kind of agreement. She runs her hand through his hair, tightening when he adds a graze of teeth over her nipple. 

Audrey finds Duke’s hand with her loose one. He squeezes back, once, and then makes a point of his tongue and presses up against her. Audrey’s fingers clench; she pulls them both to her, and doesn’t let them go.

 

_Two_

Duke sneaks out of Audrey’s bed to go down and check on the Gull. He makes sure opening up is going okay, ready for the first few morning customers, and starts to write the specials board. That’s before he sees Audrey, elbows resting on the rail of balcony. It’s a cool morning and she’s put a cardigan on over her pyjamas. _His_ cardigan, he’s pretty sure, but he’s not going to fight her for it. She smiles at him.

Duke walks back up the steps to meet her. “Good morning.”

“Hi.”

“You sleep okay?” She had been antsy before they headed to bed, he guesses because Nathan hadn’t been back. It’s probably a good sign that Nathan’s back to his old ‘must stay in the station and complete paperwork until midnight’ tricks. He’s not so worried about what’s happening with the two of them on their own. 

“Fine,” Audrey says. “Though a few of your customers sounded like they wanted to change that.”

“Sorry. Private party. We should have gone to the Rouge. Hey, you ever wonder why we never stay over at _Nathan’s_? You think he’s ashamed to introduce us to the neighbours?”

Audrey grins at him. “Honestly, I think he doesn’t have a big enough bed.”

Duke likes that explanation. He hasn’t been inside Nathan’s place for years, which seems a little off now he comes to think of it. But Nathan hadn’t understood the value of a truly amazing mattress and a king-size bed even before he stopped being able to feel the benefits of them. 

Audrey does. He woke up this morning with her starfished across him and Nathan, arm around Duke’s waist and face pressed to Nathan’s shoulder. Neither she nor Nathan sleep like people used to having someone else in their bed but Audrey at least doesn’t mind sharing. 

She stands beside him and they look out at the water. Mornings like this, Haven almost looks like somewhere horrific things don’t happen on a nearly weekly basis. Audrey leans against his shoulder. “You have plans for today?”

“I was thinking about firing some people,” he offers. Being a supposedly responsible employer has taken Duke’s life in directions he didn’t intend. “But I can only see that ending badly.” 

“Why do you need to fire them?” Audrey asks.

“Believe it or not, suspicion of criminality while under my roof.”

Audrey laughs. “Aw, Duke, have we changed you?”

“Look, I can cope with the usual vices and petty who-the-hell knows. But I do have some standards.”

“I know,” she says, placating. Then: “So why _aren’t_ you firing them?”

“I figure if I wait long enough, they’ll get themselves in their own mess and have to flee the state anyway. Either that or the Chief of Police still asleep in that bed figures it out and chases them off for me.” Duke is hoping for that option, just a bit. There’s still a good possibility Nathan accuses him of being in on it, but there’s a small chance that Nathan is going to get pissed off on Duke’s behalf, and that would be something to see. 

“Okay then,” Audrey says, not bothering to ask why it wouldn’t be quite so satisfying if she was the one to run them out of town. Duke knows she would do it if he asked, but that’s not quite the point.

Duke asks, “Why, did you have plans for _your_ morning?”

“No plans. It is,” she says with some trepidation, “my day off. And Nathan says I actually have to spend it out of the station, no calls. I thought maybe I could tag along with you, if you weren’t busy.”

Duke looks down at the water. “Sure. Want to go out on the boat?”

She smiles; he can see it out of the corner of his eye. “Sounds good.”

The door opens behind them. “Morning,” Nathan says. “Parker, remember that you’re not-.”

“Going in today, I remember. I’m going... something with Duke. Fishing? Are we fishing?”

Duke tries not to laugh. He kisses her ear. “We can fish if you want to fish.”

Nathan looks Audrey up and down. “And you’re starting out by wearing his clothes?”

Audrey shrugs. “You wore a suit jacket home. This went better with my pyjamas.”

Nathan takes a moment to consider this. “Fair enough.” He catches Duke’s eye. “Check in.”

“What do you think’s going to happen to us _fishing_?” Duke asks.

“Check in anyway. And try to both stay in the boat.”

“And again, what do you think-?”

“Duke.”

Duke salutes, lazily. “We’ll check in, we won’t get eaten by sharks, no one’ll drown. And we won’t find a case, promise.”

“Good.” Nathan wraps his arms around Audrey from behind, putting his hands into the pockets of the cardigan. He tells Audrey, “Don’t let him tell you he’s never fallen out of a boat, I was there. Keep an eye out.”

This is not untrue, but a lot of that was Nathan’s fault. Duke grew up on boats; Nathan didn’t. It had not been Duke’s fault that his new best friend had been a skinny kindergartener with no sense of balance and a below-average doggy paddle. If anything, Duke had rescued him. He doesn’t tell Audrey this, because she hardly ever needs that kind of explanation. She hooks her arm through Duke’s and tugs him in. “We’ll be fine. We’ll look out for each other, we always do.”

 

_Three_

Nathan is not entirely sure how he ended up agreeing to this. He’s aware of the line of causality, he knows what he heard Duke to say to Audrey, and he knows what he said afterwards. He’s just not sure how the one lead to the other. He flexes his arms, obviously not hurting him but still pulled in an unnatural shape above his head, secured to the headboard.

Audrey and Duke talk. Nathan doesn’t know what they talk about when he’s not there and he had been trying not to care. If he lets himself wonder about it, lets himself go back to the way it was before, then this all falls apart. He didn’t mean to interrupt them. 

Audrey had been sitting beside Duke on the bed; Nathan had been in the shower. They hadn’t heard the water turn off, he guessed. Nathan didn’t, still doesn’t, know where their conversation had started off, but by the time Nathan was standing in the bathroom listening to them, the topic had clearly turned to sex. Audrey had been saying, “Okay, but that doesn’t mean he... It’s different for him. Different for me, too. I mean, there are things I’m not interested in doing and it’s nothing to do with you, or Nathan. It’s just me.”

“And that’s fine,” Duke said, and Nathan could picture him, the way he would be leaning down to look at Audrey properly, to make sure she understood that he meant that. “It’s fine for him too. I’m not sitting here plotting ways to get him to say yes. I’m just saying that it means something different, when it’s him and me.”

“Duke.”

Nathan opens the door quietly.

Duke said, “You don’t want- you don’t like being held down.” He laughed. “You like being on top and believe me, Audrey, I have no problems with that. But that goes for me and him equally. Nate- you wanted to tie him down and have your wicked way with him, he would be flat on his back on the bed in five seconds flat. _I_ asked him that and it would be-. He doesn’t trust me that far. Which is fine, you know, I’ve made my peace with that.”

“Really?” Nathan had asked. 

Duke startled, hair moving out of his eyes when he looked up. Nathan thought maybe Audrey had already known he was standing there. Duke said, “Nathan.”

“You want to tie me down, have at it.”

“Nate.”

Nathan isn’t going to say ‘whatever you want’ and it’s not about not trusting Duke but it might be about not trusting himself. He trusts them both enough for this. “Sure.”

It had been the clear disbelief on Duke’s face, he thinks, that had done for him more than anything else. Nathan has spent a good portion of his adult life worrying about what Duke might do next but none of those concerns have ever been what Duke might to do Nathan’s body, handcuffed and vibrating with something he can’t feel. He has, on occasion, worried about what Duke might do with his handcuffs, because Duke had not always been quiet on the subject. But all Duke is doing now is watching him.

Audrey slides something soft between Nathan’s wrists and the cuffs, more careful of his body than he is, always. She taps the palm of his hand with her fingertips once, and then retreats to the edge of the bed. She looks at Duke. “You want me somewhere in particular?”

Duke says, “Come here,” and kisses her, and for a minute Nathan thinks that’s what this is all about: them putting on a show where he can’t join in. It surprises him a little to realise that he’s okay with that. But then Duke is kneeling on the bed, with his knees either side of Nathan’s thighs. He says, “Get him hard for me, would you?” and pours the slick over his fingers before focussing his gaze on Nathan and reaching between his own legs. 

Nathan’s hips jerk, pressing him into Audrey’s hand, already reaching for him. She laughs, ringing and unabashed. “Not sure he’s going to need the help.”

Duke’s eyes flick down, like he doesn’t trust her judgement on this one, which is ridiculous because Audrey has been proven time and time again to know better than both of them. But Duke looks down and then back at Nathan’s face. “Couldn’t hurt though.”

“No,” Audrey agrees, and her grip is gentle, going with Nathan’s movement rather than setting a pace. 

Duke is up to three fingers, twisting his body at an angle that probably isn’t doing a whole lot for him but which is definitely working for Nathan. Nathan manages, “You’re planning on being down here eventually, right?”

“I have a lot of plans,” Duke agrees. 

That’s not exactly a promise but it works. Nathan breathes, “ _Duke_.” Duke closes his eyes and that’s something Nathan can’t let go. “No, no, no, eyes open, look at me.” 

Duke’s eyes fly open again. “Sorry.” His pupils are blown wide and there are patches of flushed red showing through his tan, creeping down his chest. “You good?”

“Yeah.” 

“Okay then.” Duke braces one hand on Nathan’s shoulder and lowers himself down. Nathan is caught between watching that, and watching the expressions flickering across Duke’s face. Watching his mouth, he can catch every little gasp and groan; watching his eyes he can see when Duke gets the angles right and everything goes dark. For Nathan it’s heat, low in his stomach, and everything pulled sharp.

Duke looks away. “Audrey?”

“Sorry, I got distracted by the view.”

“Well, come be distracting over here.”

Audrey crawls over Nathan, kneeling over his body to face Duke. Nathan can’t see what’s happening, can only hear the sound of the wrapper and Audrey’s sigh. Audrey wraps her legs around Duke’s waist and rocks forward. This is the first moment Nathan wants the use of his hands: he wants to steady her. Instead he rocks up with his hips, making Duke curse and Audrey laugh, rolling harder into Duke. 

Duke settles his hand on Audrey’s back. He looks at Nathan. “We’ve got you.”

“I know.”

“You can’t- we’re all staying right here.” His gaze darts to the handcuffs and away again. “Okay?”

For a cop, Nathan had maybe missed the obvious subtext here. “Even if I could, I’m not going anywhere. This is me, us, right here.” 

Duke rolls his eyes. “I know that. But you took a remarkably long time to get it through your skull.”

Audrey laughs. “It’s not his fault, he literally doesn’t notice when you hit him over the head with something.”

This is what Nathan always worried about, the two of them ganging up on him. Duke pulled up and straight back down again, deep enough that Nathan can feel the brush of Audrey’s skin, and the places where that touch is interrupted by Duke. He feels the press of her fingers and the gaps where Duke’s fingers must be between hers. _This_ is what he was afraid of. As much as Duke’s Trouble, as much as Audrey pushing him away. This. If Nathan had breath left, he would laugh.

 

_One_

Audrey says, “I think we should go on a date.” The way they both spin around to stare at her is a little cute but she doesn’t let herself get distracted. “I’m serious.”

Duke says, “And that’s adorable.”

“I mean it.”

“Audrey Parker.” He takes hold of her hands. “You, of all people, should know better than that. True or false: the one and only time I _tried_ to have a date with you, you called it on account of crime.”

She looks at Nathan who just raises an eyebrow at her. He says, “We didn’t manage ours either. I’m not sure we’re really date people.”

“I was _kidnapped_ ,” she protests.

“It’s always something with you,” Duke says. 

She punches his shoulder and he goes backwards, holding it in mock-pain. She laughs but then Nathan’s cell phone buzzes, followed immediately by her own. 

Nathan looks down at the screen. “Sorry, Parker.”

“For the record,” she says, “this is not proof.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Duke says, “So is this a ‘sorry, Duke, we’ll be back by five’ or a ‘hey, Duke, we need some unarmed backup’?” He looks between them. “ _Armed_ backup?”

Nathan looks at him. “No.”

“We’ll be back by five,” Audrey adds. 

This, it turns out, is a lie. The hope that it would be otherwise was never a big one. She calls Duke to let him know that five is going to be seven, and Nathan calls him from the morgue to amend seven to nine.

It turns out to be about ten-thirty by the time they’re finished dealing with the whole situation with the telekinetic knife thrower (technically, anything metallic, but by the time they got hold of her she had freaked out enough that it was mostly larger metal objects. Like chainsaws. And cars). Duke is sitting halfway up her staircase, peering at a book in the dark. He looks down at her. “That better not be blood.”

“It’s my blood,” Nathan explains.

“Oh, because that’s much better.” Duke takes the last few steps in a bound. “I can’t believe they gave you two badges.”

Nathan manages to frown and look amused at the same time. “I was shocked too. It’s just a graze.” He looks over Duke’s shoulder. “What the hell?”

Audrey follows his gaze. “Duke.”

Duke rolls his eyes at her. “Yeah, I know, fool me once.” 

She looks at the table with three place-settings all made up outside the bar, and the half-melted candles blown out. “I thought we weren’t date people?”

He shrugs. “You wanted- I don’t know, okay, I thought I’d give it a shot.”

Audrey leans in and kisses his cheek. “Give me ten minutes.” She squeezes past him to get up the stairs.

“What?” he asks.

“Let me change first.”

Nathan elbows Duke. “I know, suddenly a bloody shirt isn’t date-appropriate attire?” He puts his hand on Duke’s shoulder and pushes him towards the bar. “C’mon, Crocker, fix me a drink.”

“Why, you gonna put out?”

“You know me,” Nathan says, “I’m easy.”

She can just hear Duke’s voice, before she closes her door. “One thing no one has ever said about you two is...” She’s heard that particular complaint more than a few times by now.

When she gets back downstairs, there are three glasses filled with something sparkling and Duke is walking back from the kitchen. He warns them, “This was better before I had to reheat it three times.”

Audrey doesn’t care. It tastes great to her. They eat.

Audrey raises her glass and waits for them to follow. She smiles. “Six months.”

Once again, the expressions are cute. Nathan’s eyes are wider but Duke’s mouth makes the best shape. Nathan asks, “Audrey, is this an anniversary dinner?”

“Your real question there,” Duke says, “is has she been planning all day to murder us for not remembering?” She kicks him this time, because her hands are occupied with the wine glass, but she can’t let that one slide.

“No.” She’s not- if she was any of the women she remembered being first, she wouldn’t give a damn about six months. It’s not a real anniversary. But she – the real she – hasn’t ever had anything longer to remember. So this matters.

Nathan is counting. “Wasn’t it six months _yesterday_? The first time was the day of that storm.”

“I’m not counting from the sex.”

Duke raises both eyebrows. “Oh really?”

“I’m counting from the morning after.”

The sex hadn’t been that surprising. She’s counting from the morning, when Duke made coffee instead of passing it off as a joke, Nathan stayed instead of making an excuse to run, and she let herself have the awkward morning after instead of just the night. The sex is great, don’t get her wrong, but it’s not the part that has her sitting out here tonight. 

Audrey jerks her head down at the three glasses, held equidistant between them. “So are we toasting, or what?”


End file.
